


The Flower Shop

by SpookySusie



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Asgore is the best dad, Breaking and Entering, Family Fluff, Foster Care, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Prequel to The Other Face of the Coin, The Other Face of the Coin Universe, susie has always needed a kris
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 18:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17586254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpookySusie/pseuds/SpookySusie
Summary: Susie looks for a safe place to sleep. Prequel short story forThe Other Face of the Coin.[Join my Discord server!]





	The Flower Shop

**Author's Note:**

> I had a wonderful time working on this for one of my Patrons!
> 
>  
> 
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> [Further Reading](spookysu.carrd.co)  
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In my defense, I thought the place was abandoned.

It wasn’t entirely unlike me to crash in places that had been seized by the government--after all, where else would a foster kid on the run go?

Foster care was stupid. You were assigned a family to live with because no one else wanted to parent your sorry ass--and no one would stick around with you long enough to see you grow and improve, either, so you were always shipped off to Foster Halfway Homes full of twenty other kids just like you--and because the government did the assigning, the assignments were always terrible. I’d gone from farmhouses--”Surely, giving Terrible Susie manual labor will change her ways!” the people cried--to oppressive religious homes--”The power of Jesus will fix her!”--and finally, to a bunch of trailer trash in Hometown. Because that made sense.

But the drugs and the fighting became too much after a while. Not that I wasn’t used to it; I had been a foster to many parents who were just in it for the extra drug money. But that didn’t make it get any less old. 

Some nights, I’d chill in the alleys. Someone had been leaving a bowl of milk and some snacks out, and I assumed this was for a pet or stray or something, but I was hungry enough that I didn’t mind being their pet for a moment.

Besides, cat food wasn’t too terrible. No worse than regular tuna.

If the weather was good, I’d crash there, taking a sleeping bag and pillow and having a night under the stars. But when it got too cold, I’d have to look for foreclosed homes, for abandoned warehouses, something along those lines. 

A few times, I climbed the fence and stayed in the backyard of Mayor Holiday. But when she found my backpack and chased me out of her yard with a weed whacker, I never tried again. 

This specific night, though, it was raining. 

Not just a light drizzle, which I normally didn’t care about, but a torrential downpour, the type that washed all the color out of your clothes. A shed wouldn’t provide enough warmth, and I didn’t want to piss Mayor Holiday off more than I already had. Most of my old hangouts had been boarded up and locked with keycodes even I coudn’t lockpick my way past, so I had to find something new.

As I put in earbuds to drown out the sounds of my foster parents screaming at each other (and sometimes mentioning me, the “useless brat,”) I packed extra layers, just in case I had to sleep somewhere unsavory. I wasn’t sure where tonight was gonna bring me. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to have friends, someone you could call when your living situation was too hellacious to handle. 

Was that not a “normal person” problem? I’d never know, nor would I socialize enough to find out. 

I climbed out the window--it was a trailer, after all, so not a far leap to the ground outside. Pulling my hood up over my head to block out the rain, I made my way through the shadows of Hometown.

It was a happy little town--in the daylight. But at night, it was its own entity. The good Churchgoing folks all found their ways to the trailer parks and gas stations, doing their shady drug deals I wished I didn’t know about. I heard a passing conversation about someone going into “the city” to “pick up some girls.”

“Unless that’s one right there!” they sneered from their car.

I pulled my hood up tighter. It was too damn wet and too damn cold for this bullshit.

I found my way to a flowershop as I tried to dodge their catcalling, so I ducked into the shadows around it and waited for them to pass. They gave up eventually, so I checked the windows.

I didn’t see any flowers inside. In fact, I didn’t see anything.

I checked the door. It was locked, but no Mayor Holiday Signature Keycode on this one. Perhaps it was newly closed down? Or maybe someone just bought the business?

Either way, it was mine for the night. 

I looked around behind the shop, figuring they had to have decorative bricks or rocks or whatever rich people liked with their flowers. Luckily, I found one; a decorative plaster with four various-sized handprints (some of them looking a bit more like paws than hands) with the words “Love Lives Here.”

_ Love sure lives here now _ , I thought to myself.

Then I chucked it through the window and climbed in, dodging the broken glass.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a flashlight, checking the main room. Now that I was inside, I noticed a few things that looked brand new and completely out-of-place in the dusty shop, such as a cash register, a tablet (which I debated pocketing and pawning, but I decided against it after some consideration, as I didn’t know enough about tablets to wipe their contents in order for it to not be traced back to the original owner, nor did I want to be caught with something so obviously expensive and stolen), some books about various golden flowers, and one with a symbol I had seen around town a lot.

A delta rune.

My fingers ghosted the leather-bound cover. There was no title, just the symbol on the spine and the cover, the pages worn, like something out of a movie. 

I flipped through the pages, noticing their water stains in some places, burn marks in others, but there were no words. I shined my flashlight beneath the pages, rubbed on them, but to no avail.

It was an empty book.

Just when I was about to set it down and give up, the lights in the flower shop flickered on, and the sound of heavy feet came from the upstairs.

Upstairs.

Why the hell didn’t I check up there first?

Chiding myself, I made my way to the broken window, only for the collar of my shirt to be caught.

“What are you doing in my shop, child?”

“I, um, I,” I mumbled. I was always a terrible excuse maker, and a worse liar.

“Look at me.”

He turned me around, and I met the eyes of a giant, goatlike monster, a kind smile on his sleepy face. He looked vaguely familiar, like the town’s old golden boy, the top student at the school I heard so much about these days. 

“I’ve heard about you.” His smile widened, but not in a threatening way at all. More like what I assumed how a father would look at a young child. 

“Y-you have?”  _ Dammit, Susie, why can’t you say something vaguely intelligent? _

“Would you like a cup of tea, child?” He raised one of his hands, and I flinched, but he just pushed my bangs out of my eyes. “You’re Susie, right?”

I nodded, suddenly incapable of talking. 

“You don’t need to be afraid. I’m sure you have a really good reason for breaking and entering.”

“I...needed a place to sleep,” I mumbled, digging the toes of my duct-taped boots onto wood floors of the shop. 

“You’re...the town’s newest foster kid, right?”

“Newest?” I asked.

“Sure. There were a few before you. Same family. But their name escapes me…”

I didn’t say their name. I promised myself I never would. I’d never associate with them. The minute I turned eighteen, I’d be gone forever, one way or another. 

“Would you like to come upstairs with me?”

Rapidly, I shook my head, backing into the broken window. My mind swam with the memories of strange men offering me to their houses--and other parts of them.

Like my current foster parents.

Bile rose into my throat. 

“I promise I won’t hurt you. Come away from the glass, Susie. I don’t want you to get cut.”

Swallowing my vomit, I stepped away from the window with a crunch of the glass under my boots. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. In fact, I can let you out, and I’ll fix the window, and we never have to speak of this again, if you like.”

I looked outside. The sky flashed with lightning. The howling wind against the broken window sent shards of glass flying and snapped a tree in half.

“I’ll stay,” I decided.

There was that warm smile again. Why was he being so nice? What did he want?

“Then you can stay down here. I’ll fetch you some tea. I don’t have a lot to my name right now, but...why don’t you and I become friends?”

My eyes welled up, but I wasn’t gonna let a stranger see me cry. “Th...thank you, um…”

“Asgore. My name is Asgore.”


End file.
